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5
Valentin Silvestrov: Silent Songs
Hélène Grimaud, piano; Konstantin Krimmel, baritone
Deutsche Grammophon, 2023
This new CD from Deutsche Grammophon features the Five Songs and some of the Eleven Songs by Valentin Silvestrov, one of Ukraine’s leading composers. Initially an exponent of the so-called Kiev Avant-Garde, which developed around the 1960s, Silvestrov has known greater success in the style he himself refers to as “meta-music”—metaphorical music. In Silvestrov’s writing, a touching lyricism of Mahlerian inspiration and contemporary colours coexist: the language of this style is universal and precisely meant as an instrument from which the listener can give his own meaning to the music.
Art can be a metaphor, and this album brilliantly captures its potential. It is imbued with an indefinite nostalgia; it offers a narrative taste that brings us great artistic pleasure. In these songs, the texts are derived from renowned authors of Russian (Pushkin, Mandelstam, to name a few), Ukrainian (Shevchenko) and English (Keats and Shelley) literature.
Pianist Hélène Grimaud and baritone Konstantin Krimmel open with Song Can Heal the Ailing Spirit, extremely touching and in line with Silvestrov’s conception, which considers the melodic element as the foundation of his compositional esthetic. Also interesting are Farewell, O World, Farewell, O Earth and A Winter Journey, two examples of how titles and sound atmospheres are woven into one another. The task of the performers here, more than anywhere else, is to do nothing but offer music as a universal gift to audiences. Both interpreters accomplish this. The voice of Krimmel, one of the most pre-eminent young baritones on the international scene, is as natural as it is expressive. Grimaud’s display is well calibrated and attentive to the harmonic colours that are so characteristic of Silvestrov’s music.
A really pleasant aural healing for the ailing spirit, to tap into the title of the song that opens this CD
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